THE PUBLIC OPINION BILL 


SPEECH 

of 

ROBERT LUCE 

0 

Before 

The Central Labor Union of Boston 


OCTOBER 20, 1907 











Mr. President and Gentlemen :— 

It has been explained to me that in asking me to lay before 
yon the arguments in behalf of the Public Opinion Bill, you do 
not invite debate with the Hon. Henry Cabot Lodge, who so ably 
presented to you the other side. It is in fact far from my desire 
to give any personal flavor to the consideration of a somewhat aca¬ 
demic question, and what reference I may make to Mr. Lodge will 
be solely for the purpose of giving a clearer understanding of the 
issues, and with the hope that I shall not pass the boundary be¬ 
tween discussion and controversy. The opinions of so eminent a 
scholar and statesman as the Senator merited the earnest atten¬ 
tion you gave to them, expressed as they were with grace, vigor, 
and eloquence that might well arouse admiration and envy. If 
after listening to him any of you, like myself, remained uncon¬ 
vinced, it must have been because no argument, however ingenious 
or subtle, can overcome the inborn belief, the instinctive faith, that 
the people of America are capable of self-government, and that 
though the voice of the people may not always be the voice of 
God, it is more likely to speak for the good of humanity than the 
voice of any chosen few. 

The Public Opinion Bill proposes, in brief, that upon peti¬ 
tions with reasonable backing questions of public policy may be 
put on the ballot, in' order, of course, that representatives may 
know the views of those whom they represent. In and of itself 
there is nothing radical or revolutionary in it, for in principle it 
embodies a proposition set forth in the Bill of Rights of the Con¬ 
stitution of Massachusetts—“The people have a right to give in¬ 
structions to their representatives.” It is denounced because it is 
a tendency. It looks toward a greater control of their govern¬ 
ment by a majority of the citizens. It is a step, and a very short 
step, but because it is a step, it is feared by those who would halt 
the march of civilization. 

Undoubtedly it has vast significance because it means 
motion. There are those who cannot conceive of any good in 
motion. To them stagnation is the ideal state. The institutions 
they received from the fathers, they would hand down to the sons 
and without change. Yet growth is the law of the universe. 
Every living thing lives and dies that it may be followed by some- 


.8 


thing better. And for institutions as for men, progress is the com¬ 
mand of Nature. 

New times demand new measures and new men; 

The world advances, and in time outgrows 
The laws that in our fathers’ day were best; 

And doubtless after us some better scheme 
Will be shaped out by wiser men than we, 

Made wiser by the steady growth of truth. 

From the beginning of politics—which is the science of gov¬ 
ernment—two forces have been constantly struggling against each 
other. One of these forces works for the government of the many 
by the few, whether that few be an autocracy, oligarchy, aristo¬ 
cracy, nobility, machine, or ring, or the handful of henchmen sup¬ 
porting an absolute monarch, a despot, a prime minister, or a 
political boss. It is inspired by the belief, avowed or implied, that 
the multitude is unfit for self-government. The other force 
works for the rule of the majority, on the theory that all men are 
politically equal and have a right L in equal share in their public 
concerns. 

The extreme reached by one of these forces we call pure de¬ 
mocracy. It existed among the early Teutonic tribes; it survives 
only in some of the cantons of Switzerland and in the New Eng¬ 
land town meeting. Most men admit that it is impracticable un¬ 
der the populous conditions of modern communities. 

The other extreme is that of pure representative government. 
Unable in long search to find a definition of it that satisfied me, 
I have ventured to frame one, and to it I call your particular at¬ 
tention, because it seems to me that difference in definition accounts 
for many of the apparent differences of opinion between those who 
discuss the question before us. It is that system under which au¬ 
thority is for the time being entrusted, delegated, transferred, to 
a few, without control, whether under constitutional limita¬ 
tions or not. I regretted that Senator Lodge did not 
preface his magnificent eulogy of representative government 
by explaining what he meant thereby, for without agreement as to 
terms, we can reach agreement neither as to premises nor as to 
conclusions. It helps us none to presume that the Senator meant 
the form of government under which authority is exercised through 

4 

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Ar * . 

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Jun ?9 ign 


representatives. The vital point is whether that authority is to be 
exercised with or without control. This is recognized by the ablest 
living critic of governmental institutions, James Bryce, now the 
British Ambassador at Washington, who thus describes pure repre¬ 
sentative government: “The people in their various local areas elect 
men, supposed to be their wisest or most influential, to deliberate 
for them, resolve for them, choose their executive servants for them. 
They give these representatives a tolerably free hand, leaving them 
in power for a considerable space of time, and allowing them to 
act unchecked, except in so far as custom, or possibly some funda¬ 
mental law, limits their discretion.” Such is the system of rep¬ 
resentative government that has long prevailed in England. 

On the other hand the definition of John Stuart Mill shows 
how misunderstandings may follow a failure to agree upon terms. 
“The meaning of representative government,” he said, “is that the 
whole people, or some numerous portion of them, exercise through 
deputies periodically elected by themselves, the ultimate controlling 
power, which in every constitution must reside somewhere. This 
ultimate power they must possess in all its completeness. They 
must be masters whenever they please, of all the operations of 
government.” If this was what Mr. Lodge meant by representative 
government, then will I throw up both hands in approval of his 
words of eulogy. But birth, environment, and training forbid me 
to approve if the idea is that upheld by Thomas Hobbes in his 
famous book, The Leviathan. “When the representative is one 
man,” he said, “then is the commonwealth a ‘monarchy*; when an 
assembly of all that will come together, then it is a ‘democracy*; 
when an assembly of a part only, then it is called an ‘aristocracy*.** 
Hobbes’s theory was that surrender of authority was final. Justice 
Oliver Wendell Holmes, in an opinion to our General Court, de¬ 
clared that “Hobbes urged his notion in the interest of the absolute 
power of King Charles I., and one of the objects of the Constitu¬ 
tion of Massachusetts was to deny it.** 

It was, indeed, one of the well understood purposes of the 
founders of our nation to prevent this theory of delegated author¬ 
ity from depriving the American people of the liberty for which 
they had fought the War of the Revolution. For example, Jeffer¬ 
son, in his “Notes on the State of Virginia,** wrote, referring to the 
situation of a majority of an Assembly having absolute power: 


5 


“One hundred and seventy-three despots would surely be as oppres¬ 
sive as one. Let those who doubt it. turn their eyes on the repub¬ 
lic of Venice. As little will it avail us, that they are chosen by our¬ 
selves. An elective despotism was not the government we fought 
for.” With precisely the same idea John Adams, as stout a 
Federalist as Jefferson was a Republican, put into our own Bill of 
Rights Article V. thereof, which reads: “All power residing 
originally in the people, and being derived from them, the several 
magistrates and officers of government, whether legislative, execu¬ 
tive or judicial, are their substitutes and agents, and are at all 
times accountable to them.” That this does not mean mere liabil¬ 
ity to impeachment or to defeat when up for re-election, is shown 
by the fact that thirty years later Adams wrote to a friend: “The 
right of the people to instruct their representatives is very dear to 
them and will never be disputed by me.” 

Not all the leaders of that time, however, dared trust the 
people. Alexander Hamilton, in some ways the ablest of them all, 
feared the masses. Mr. Lodge says in his Life of Hamilton that 
he did not believe in democracy as a system of government. 
In a powerful speech before the Constitutional Convention, he pre¬ 
sented a scheme of government which contemplated an elective 
monarchy and a Senate to be elected for life by electors with con¬ 
siderable property qualifications. Yates -reports him as then 
saying:— 

“All communities divide themselves into the few and the 
many. The first are the rich and well-born, the other the mass of 
the people.. The people are turbulent and changing; they seldom 
judge or determine right. Give, therefore, to the first class a dis¬ 
tinct, permanent share in government. They will check the un¬ 
steadiness of the second, and, as cliey cannot receive any advantage 
bv a change, they therefore will ever maintain good government. 
Can a democratic Assembly, who annually revolve in the mass of 
the people, be supposed steadily to pursue the public good? Noth¬ 
ing but a permanent body can check the imprudence of democracy. 
Their turbulent and uncontrolling disposition requires checks.” 

One hundred and twenty years later, after the Constitution 
feared by the greatest statesman of his time has proved itself the 
best instrument of government man ever perfected and has made 
ours the mightiest nation on the globe, it is singular to find some 


6 


of the very phrases Hamilton used cropping out in this discussion 
of the attempt to secure to “the many” the rights guaranteed to 
.them by the Constitution. 

In Massachusetts from the very outset it was settled that the 
General Court was simply the agent of the people and subject to 
their constant control. At the first it was a meeting of all the 
freeholders, a pure democracy. When the colony grew so that 
this became impracticable, representatives were chosen to carry 
out the will of the majority. For two hundred years these repre¬ 
sentatives were kept under the more or less direct control of their 
constituents, through instructions given to them in town meeting. 
Such instructions goaded them into the War of the Revolution. 
Orders were thus given to such men as John and Sam Adams, 
Hancock, Otis, Bowdoin, Sullivan, and other leaders of the time; 
These men thought it no blow to their self-respect to be instructed, 
no forfeiture of independence to obey instructions. They fiever 
dreamed that the universal practice of the time meant the ruin of 
legislative responsibility. 1 might repeat to you scores of these 
‘instructions. Two or three will suffice to show' the important 
thing.—the spirit of our institutions. Thus the Boston town meet¬ 
ing of 17(54 put the case for the Public Opinion Bill in a nutshell 
when it voted: “By this choice, we, the free holders of the towm, 
have delegated you the power of acting in our public concerns, in 
general, as your prudence shall direct you; reserving to ourselves 
the constitutional right of expressing our minds and giving you 
such instructions upon important subjects as at any time we may 
judge proper.” In 1783—and this was after the new State Con¬ 
stitution had been adopted—Sam Adams himself prepared the 
instructions, and put our case even more strongly: “We confide 
in your integrity and good understanding to conduct the public 
affairs in our behalf in such manner as to promote the interest 
and safety of the Commonwealth at large and of this metropolis in 
particular. It is nevertheless our unalienable right to communi¬ 
cate to you our sentiments, and when we shall judge it necessary or 
convenient, to give your our instructions on any special matter, 
and we expect you will hold yourselves at all times bound to attend 
to and observe them.” 

In the Massachusetts Convention of 1788, held to consider 
whether Massachusetts would adopt the proposed Constitution for 


the United States, there was grave danger it would be rejected. 
Had this happened, probably the United States of America would 
never have come into being. So serious was the crisis that those 
who had taken part in framing the Constitution were called in to 
defend it. Among the criticisms was one upon the provisions for 
the national Senate. Rufus King, one of the foremost statesmen 
of that day, replied: “The State Legislature if they find their 
members [the United States Senators] erring, can and will in¬ 
struct them. Will not this be a check ? When they hear the voice 
of the people solemnly dictating to them their duty, they will be 
* bold men indeed to act contrary to it. There will not be instruc¬ 
tions to them sent in a private letter which they can put in their 
pockets; they will be public instructions which all the country can 
see, and they will be hardy men indeed to violate them.” 

So one of the pledges, one of the guarantees, that led Massa¬ 
chusetts to adopt the Constitution w r as the promise that we should 
have the right to instruct and control even our United States 
Senators. 

Coming down to our own time we find that those who stren¬ 
uously oppose the Public Opinion Bill because it might give to the 
popular will a concrete expression that would swerve representa¬ 
tives in their-action, are continually refuting their own arguments. 
Practically every man who voted against that bill in the House, 
voted two months later to postpone the most important practical 
problem of the session, that of the merger, “in order that public 
sentiment might crystallize,” as it was phrased. Senator Lodge 
said to you: “There could be no greater misfortune to free popu¬ 
lar government than to w r eaken or impair the principle of represen¬ 
tation, and the quickest way to break that principle down is to take 
from representative bodies all responsibility and turn them into 
mere machines of record.” Three w 7 eeks later, in his brilliant 
speech to the Republican State Convention, he said: “When the 
presidential election comes, we shall be glad to discuss the tariff 
w'ith our opponents from one end of the country to the other, and 
take the opinion of the American people as to whether they wish 
to hand over the tariff to those who would destroy it, or leave it 
with those who will revise it only in accordance wdth the principles 
of protection.” 

It is, however, idle here and now to discuss the value of a rep- 


8 


resentative government in which the representative does all the 
thinking and deciding for those he represents. No such government 
exists in any country of the world living under genuine constitu¬ 
tional provisions. The very purpose of a constitution is to allow 
public opinion to exert itself, and in no country are representatives 
chosen without regard to whether they share the views of the 
electors on some question of public policy. The very purpose of 
the existence of parties is to give expression to the beliefs of their 
members. 

What, then, is our system of government? The answer is 
clear. It is a combination of pure democracy and of pure repre¬ 
sentative government. It stands midway the extremes. In most 
things the representative is independent, but he is not supreme, 
a benevolent despot. For at the stated intervals of election time 
he is subject to such control as the people choose to exercise, and 
at other times he is in practice controlled to greater or less degree 
by the moral influence of public opinion. 

Bryce says flatly that ours is a government of public opinion. 
And the one significant, determining, unchangeable, and all im¬ 
portant fact in this discussion is that our government IS a gov¬ 
ernment of public opinion, that is to saj r , is based on the theory 
that the will of the majority prevails, and is supposed to conform 
thereto. We contend for the importance of securing an accurate 
expression of this will. We believe we but echo a feeling well nigh 
universal in America today, that too often the popular will does 
not prevail, that too often it is thwarted for selfish purposes. 
Then 1 is widespread distrust of our legislative bodies, national, 
State, and local, apprehension that they are too easily affected by 
combinations of capital, suspicion that they too often subordinate 
the public welfare to the greed of exploiters, belief that from 
timidity and undue conservatism they too slowly respond to the 
public demand for progress along moral, social, and economic 
lines, with the result that in comparison with other lands we are 
falling behind in many things working for the uplifting of human¬ 
ity and the advance of civilization. It is far from my purpose 
to disparage that body wdth which I am familiar—the Legislature 
r*.f Massachusetts. I believe it surpasses all the other Legislatures 
of the land in honesty, integrity, and ability. I believe it does 
much work of great value to the community. But I also believe 


9 


that it is not keeping step with the march of the nations in many 
attempts for the betterment of the condition of the masses, for the 
protection of labor in its unequal contest with capital, for the 
improvement of social conditions. I believe it would be found to 
be the will of the majority that we should progress at least as fast 
as England, France, or Germany. 

At present we have but one way of giving definite expression 
to the popular will, and that is in the choice of law makers. Those 
who serve us in the national congress are chosen on platforms more 
honored in the breach than the observance. The single predomi¬ 
nant issue, perhaps the tariff, may elect men to do the will of 
their constituencies in that particular matter, but on all other 
issues it is only by accident a Congressman is in harmony with 
his district, and on the predominant issue of the moment a Senator 
may be wholly out of touch with his State. If a Congressman is 
to vote as his district wishes on the tariff, why should he not vote 
as it wishes on other great questions of public policy? In our 
State governments and most of our city governments, even the one 
bond of agreement in belief between representative and constitu¬ 
ency disappears, for men are chosen to make laws for city or State 
on the strength of wdiat they believe about a problem that is 
national, not local. 

The re-election test is also advanced as a means for public 
opinion to assert itself. Note that the man who argues this, ad¬ 
mits that during service a legislator is to pay heed to the public 
will through hope of rew'ard or fear of punishment. But why 
delay letting him know' the public will until too late to conform 
to it? That is locking the stable door after the horse has been 
stolen. 

We are told that a formal expression of opinion would be fatal 
and in the same breath that nothing today prevents circulation of 
petitions, or passage of instructions by town meetings or city 
councils, in order to give an expression of opinion. The people 
do have the right of petition, and a sacred right it is, but no man 
who lias served in a Legislature ought with appearance of candor 
to advance it in its present shape as an effective channel for 
public opinion. All city charters provide for public meetings that 
may of course instruct, hut city conditions make them either im¬ 
practicable or useless, for they cannot be assembled in such num- 


10 


bers as to be representative in character. Seventy per cent, of the 
voters of the State are in such districts that they cannot well 
instruct members of the House, and there is no practical way what¬ 
ever for instructing a member of the State Senate. 

We have the right of petition, of instruction. What we want 
is the right to have that right effective. 

Committee hearings are of no value for showing what may be 
the desire of the people at large. There are about 700,000 legal 
voters in Massachusetts, Rarely do seventy of them attend a com¬ 
mittee meeting or seven of them ask to be heard on any one 
question. We get much useful information and advice from those 
who speak, but have no means of knowing whether they reflect 
public sentiment. From the annual woman suffrage hearing one 
would infer public sentiment to be nearly' evenly divided on that 
question. As a matter of fact when the people voted on it a decade 
ago, they voted it down by a majority of more than a 
hundred thousand. And it is worth noting that one of my 
good friends, who is as earnest, zealous, and able an opponent of 
woman suffrage as he i3 of the Public Opinion Bill, every year 
takes the trouble to send to each member of the Committee on 
Election Laws a statement of how that member’s district voted 
on the woman suffrage question, of course that his action may be 
affected by the public opinion thus expressed. 

A danger of the committee system is the chance for secretly 
influencing committees. Recall wdiat was said of it in behalf of 
our bill at Faneuil Hall by President Eliot, the wisest man in 
Massachusetts today: 

“What has been the great crying evil in American political 
life for the past forty years? Secret influence, fellow citizens. 
That is the great, crying evil concerning legislative and adminis¬ 
trative bodies. Do w r e not all know what the money power is over 
legislators and how it is exercised? In secret, by the personal 
efforts of interested men to procure legislation which will subserve 
their interests, or to prevent legislation which they believe will 
damage their interests.” 

For another source of knowledge as to wdiat may be public 
opinion, we are referred to the columns of the newspapers. The 
press has a tremendous responsibility in the creation of public 
opinion, for the most part creditably borne by men who mean to be 


11 


good citizens. No doubt, too, the press reflects public opinion as 
well as partisanship or commercial influences permit. But I am 
loth to accept it unreservedly as my mentor, particularly when I 
note newspapers opposed to the Public Opinion Bill seeking to 
mould public opinion in the very act of denouncing it, telling us 
in one paragraph that we are not to give it heed, that it is impul¬ 
sive, clamorous, prejudiced, whimsical,—and surrounding that par¬ 
agraph with other editorials meant to create public opinion for 
the very purpose of influencing the decisions of the Legislature. 

Urging the insufficiency of present methods of finding out 
what may be the popular will, we ask simply that the right we 
have under the Constitution shall be made usable. We ask the 
right to think aloud, so that legislators can hear. We ask that the 
law making body may be thereby brought into closer fellowship 
and harmony with the source of all political powei under our 
theory of government—the will of the people. 

The method we propose for accomplishing this, has been vari¬ 
ously criticised. Such criticism as relates to the details of the 
machinery, may be passed over quickly. We are not insistent 
about details. As to the number of signatures to be required for 
petitions, we care only that it shall be reasonable, and not so 
excessive as to make the law worthless. Nor do we care what num¬ 
ber of questions may go on the ballot at any one time. Some of 
the fault-finding with details is evidently based on misinformation. 
Critics who are so ungenerous as not to read the bill before they 
attack it, continue to charge that it would permit unanswerable 
questions of the type of—“Have you stopped beating your wife?” 
The bill plainly provides that after the State Ballot Law Com¬ 
missioners have determined a question, to be one of public policy, 
they “shall draft it in such simple, unequivocal, and adequate form 
as they may deem best suited to secure a fair expression of 
opinion.” 

The charges that signatures .would be given heedlessly, that 
they could be easily secured, that newspaper coupons could be used, 
that fraudulent signatures would prevail—all are answered either 
by the provisions of the bill or by our declaration that we ask only 
what may be reasonable to show there is really considerable de¬ 
mand for a vote on a question of public policy. 

More serious criticisms are to be met. 


12 


We are told that the opportunity will be more used by the 
unrighteous than the righteous, that the adroit and unscrupulous 
will monopolize the places on the ballot with questions designed to 
advance their selfish ends. It is not easy to imagine any question 
a ballot law commission would construe to be one of public policy, 
which framed simply and unequivocally as required would expose 
us to that sort of danger. Indeed, the argument can be quickly 
reduced to absurdity by pointing out that when corporate or other 
selfish interests prefer to run the gauntlet of a popular vote rather 
than resort direct to the legislature, then rivers will run up hill. 

It is averred that those who oppose this bill are not animated 
by distrust of the people, but that their distrust is of the informa¬ 
tion, the knowledge of the people. Were this a question of the 
details of law-making, the argument might carry weight, but here 
again cur critics ascribe to us purposes we never entertained, meth¬ 
ods we never advocated. We seek only that the will of the major¬ 
ity may be voiced on broad questions of public policy, and we say 
any man who objects to that, distrusts the people. 

When an apostle of reaction declares the average voter must 
not have the chance to pass on a question of public policy because 
the voter is ignorant or stupid, he arrays himself with those advo¬ 
cates of inequality who in all ages have asserted the inherent unfit¬ 
ness of the masses of mankind to look out for themselves. Their 
spirit was notably exemplified by President Baer of the Reading 
Railroad when in the course of the coal strike he said: “The 
rights and interest of the laboring man will be protected and cared 
for—not by the labor agitator, but by men to whom God in his 
infinite wisdom has given the control of the property interests of 
the country.” That same idea of a divine allotment of duties and 
responsibilities and capacities is the basis of the belief in the 
divine nght of kings that has been the excuse of every absolute 
monarch. It was the belief of the Hapsburgs and the Bourbons. 
It led Charles the First to try to reign without the help of Parlia¬ 
ment, and cost him his head. Crystallized into the fanaticism of 
the bigot, it made Philip of Spain crush the liberties of Arragon, 
trample underfoot the constitutional freedom of the Low Coun¬ 
tries, and blot out resistance in every corner of his vast dominion 
so that he could boast, “I am an absolute monarch.” It justified 
the vaunt of Louis the Fourteenth—“The State, it is I.” Its 


13 


shadow survives even in the England of today, where still it is held 
that “The King can do no wrong/’ Extremes, you say, with no 
bearing on the conditions of America. Yet once staid on the 
theory that only the few are qualified to decide questions of public 
policy for the mass, and there is no logical stopping place short of 
oligarchy or absolutism. Indeed, the early stages of the progress 
are already here in sight. Show me the American city without 
its bos? or ring, resting the claim of dominion on the ground that 
a man or a machine has by virtue of success in seizing power, 
proved superior fitness for the task and gains of government. Show 
me the American State without political chieftains who think that 
they alone are qualified to determine who shall be the servants of 
the people. 

It is further said that the Public Opinion Bill is bad because 
it would compel the average man to acquaint himself with ques¬ 
tions of public policy. lie is too busy getting a living or enjoying 
himself. Don’t bother* him. Let him hire somebody to do his 
thinking. No doctrine could be preached more pernicious, more 
fraught with danger to the Kepublic. The appeal of the man who 
would thus be let alone is the cry of the man who has taken poison 
—“Let me sleep.” But you and I know he can be saved only by 
shaking him out of his drowsiness, by forcing him to walk. So 
it is w r ith a people that has swallowed the poison of political indif¬ 
ference. Salvation lies only in compelling it to action. The plea 
that the masses are too busy, too lazy, or too crazy to solve for 
themselves the great problems of civic progress, has been the plea 
of every man who has usurped authority. It is the plea of the 
autocrat. It has no place in America. 

If it be true that it is more important for the average citizen 
to look out for his private concerns than for the public welfare, 
how can he blame his fellow citizens who act on that same theory 
and for selfish purposes exploit the law-making mechanism? If 
corporate interests buy or steal unfair benefits and privileges, what 
complaint can be made by the man who says he is too busy to think 
about public questions and leaves all that to his hired man, whom 
he employs to legislate for him? Indifference on the part of a 
constituency is a constant temptation to the betrayal of its welfare. 

Again, we are told the town meeting acts wisely because it 
has opportunity for debate, amendment, and postponement. Very 


14 


true, bat so far as the comparison has any application at all, is 
there not the same opportunity under the Public Opinion Bill, and 
more of it? We transfer the debate from a single hour, in a 
single hall, to weeks of it on the street, in the home, at the meet¬ 
ings of clubs. Boards of Trade, countless organizations, and in the 
columns of every journal in the State. If amendment is needed, 
the Legislature can amend. And as to postponement, the capacity 
of a Legislature for that is boundless. A motion to refer “to the 
next General Court” will doubtless always be the refuge of the 
coward or the bulwark of the brave. 

All through the arguments of our opponents runs the 
fallacy that the Legislature must obey the mandate, that it 
is imperative, that there is to be no dodging, no delay, no 
change. Assuming that a republic is not a failure, and 
that generally the will of the majority is right, we must 

face the undoubted fact that sometimes the majority is 
wrong. If because of this it is never to voice its will, 

then party platforms should disappear, the views of candidates 
should not be asked or given, press and pulpit should be silent on 
every issue of public concern, all the channels through which pub¬ 
lic opinion now flows should be dammed. This, of course, is 
absurd. We are not to stifle the voice of the majority because now 
and then it shakes with passion or quivers with anger. But if 
there are legislators who dare now say “No” to it, or “Wait a 
while,” when they believe it to be in the wrong, will they the less 
dare because it speaks at the polls? There always have been, there 
always will be, men to whom “one with God is a majority.” I do 

not believe the race of heroes will perish when the people instruct 

their agents by the ballot. 

It is argued that a formal vote on a question of public policy 
will afford a convenient excuse for many representatives to shirk 
their responsibility and appease their consciences. Those who 
now seek to know the popular will to that end would surely be the 
better off with precise information. Those -who do and always will 
do their own thinking, but who admit that the desires of their con¬ 
stituents should have great weight, would surely be better off with 
precise information. There remains the middle group—of men 
who might exercise independent judgment if in ignorance of the 
popular will, but knowing it, would obey it. If the common judg- 


15 


ment and th§ common instinct are not in the long run and upon 
the whole wiser than the individual judgment and the individual 
instinct of such men, then republican institutions are doomed. 

We are told that expressions of public opinion by the ballot 
would be worthless because only a fraction of the voters would 
take part in them, and to prove this the figures of many refer¬ 
endum votes are cited. It is true that large numbers of voters 
refrain from voting on questions of which they know nothing or 
in which they take no interest. Does not that make the vote of 
the rest all the more significant? Wipe out the ignorant and the 
indifferent, and you have left those whose ideas are worth some¬ 
thing. But if the fraction voting were distinctly small, it would 
be the best possible proof to the legislative, body that the genuine 
demand for any action whatever was so insignificant as to be 
ignored. The noisy minority that now throngs a committee room 
would often be shamed into oblivion if compelled to disclose public 
indifference by the test of a vote at the polls. 

The most serious of all the objections to the measure shapes 
itself in the charge that it would lessen the responsibility of legis¬ 
lators, withering their strength and reducing them to mere ma¬ 
chines of record. Apprehension is felt that by so breaking down 
the representative system, we shall in the end wipe out the legis¬ 
lative department of our government, the judicial department 
will disappear shortly afterward, and only the executive will 
remain, with the strong man in the saddle. Frankly, I cannot 
follow this reasoning. It does not appear why the legislative part 
of our system is to vanish because another mode is to be provided 
to carry into effect what today is supposed to be carried into effect 
—the will of the majority. 

All these criticisms come in the last analysis to distrust of 
the people,—not of their desires and purposes, but of their powers 
and capacities. The phrase-makers sum up the case by charging 
that we propose “government by impulse” and “government by 
mob.” Such has been the charge brought against every extension 
of popular power through the ages that have watched the growth 
of democracy. Every gain has been wrested from a grudging 
oligarchy, jealous of its privileges and afraid of the mob, yet com¬ 
ing in the end to see and admit its error. “It has to be confessed,” 
says Benjamin Kidd in “Social Evolution ” “that in England dur- 


16 


ing the nineteenth century the educated classes, in almost all the 
great political changes that have been effected, have taken the 
side of the party afterward admitted to be in the wrong,—they 
have almost invariably opposed at the time the measures they 
have subsequently come to defend and justify.” Just as the 
Tories who fled from Boston came afterward to see that the yeo¬ 
men of Middlesex did the world inestimable service at Lexington 
and Concord, just as the merchants of Boston who called Phillips a 
fool and Garrison a fanatic came afterward to see that abolition 
alone could save our country, so in time I believe the classes and 
their orators and their journals that view with alarm further 
growth of the power of the masses, will admit its blessings. 

For it means better laws, more obedience to law, more justice, 
more safety. Dr. von Holst has well observed in his “Constitu¬ 
tional Law of the United States” that the completeness and con¬ 
sistency with which the principle of direct sovereignty of the whole 
people is carried out in America has checked revolutionary tenden¬ 
cies, by pointing out a peaceful and legal method for the effecting 
of political or economic changes, and has fostered that disposition 
to respect the decision of the majority which is essential to the suc¬ 
cess of popular government. 

When law precisely reflects the sentiment of the people, it 
will be obeyed to the full. It will not have the weakness of lag¬ 
ging behind public sentiment, as the conservative would prefer, or 
of outrunning public sentiment, as the radical demands, but ex¬ 
pressing the temper of the time, with the whole weight of the 
community behind it, will do its perfect work. No government is 
sound and safe that does not have the confidence of the people. 
Grievous though it may be, the fact is that our law-making bodies, 
city. State, and national, have not today in full measure the con¬ 
fidence of the people. To restore them to this confidence we 
urge that they be brought more in harmony with the popular will. 
For we believe that the popular will is at any rate honest; that the 
people have no motive for corruption; that it is worse to be venal 
than to be foolish; that mistakes cost less than graft; that the 
people are actuated by the highest land of self-interest— 
the common good. Furthermore, we believe that the people are 
exposed to fewer temptations than their legislatures. The people 
cannot be so easily wheedled, cajoled, bribed, influenced, threat- 


17 


ened. They cannot he seduced by special interests, vested, inter¬ 
ests, personal interests. They stand in no fear of corporations or 
factions or sects, of the Irish vote or the Italian vote, of Span¬ 
ish Veterans or members of the Grand Army, of committees or 
conventions, of ring or machine or boss. Without fear or favor, 
they would deal more justly than any legislative body by Catholic 
or Protestant, Jew or Gentile, Republican or Democrat. And we 
believe that greater power to the people would work for greater 
safety to the Commonwealth, because a free democracy is the most 
conservative government in the world. 

The growth of popular power is inevitable. In the end pub¬ 
lic opinion will prevail. Why put obstacles in its way ? If we 
believe in popular government, we must believe that public opinion 
will prevail for good and not for ill. Then why delay it? Shall 
only generations yet unborn profit by its benefits? 

The opposition is short-sighted. It cannot see that if a mod¬ 
erate and reasonable measure like this is thwarted, the day will be 
hastened when the people will retake their power with a vehemence 
that may work calamity. Timely concession is wise statesmanship. 
Had King George listened, he would not have lost his colonies. 
Had the Bourbons heeded, there would have been no French Rev¬ 
olution. Already in some of the States of our land the people are 
doing their own law making. From the Atlantic to the Pacific, 
from Maine to Oregon, the demand for direct legislation grows 
apace and is gaining points of vantage. Direct legislation means 
none of the bloody brutalities of a French Revolution, none of the 
sacrifices of a War for Independence, but it is a radical step for 
which some of us are not yet prepared, and well nigh revolutionar\ r 
in its meaning. If some of us, while loyal to progress, would* 
make haste slowly, would try advising our law makers before sup¬ 
planting them, would try the Public Opinion Bill before resorting 
to the Initiative and Referendum, surely we may ask some credit 
for conservatism, caution, prudence. And w T e may deplore the 
reactionary tendencies of our opponents, who would renounce the 
principles of our fathers, and reverse the wheels of progress. 

No, there cannot, must not, be reaction. “No man, having 
put his hand to the plough, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom 
of God.” With faces to the front, we must take our part in the 
struggle for political equality that has waged, since History began. 


18 


It surged in the market-place of Athens. The temples of the 
Forum echoed with its arguments when Cicero, most eloquent of 
orators and foremost of aristocrats, denounced the secret ballot. 
“Mark,” he said, “what ruin has resulted from the ballot. Now 
I seem to see the people united no longer in the Senate, and the 
highest interests disposed of at the will of the multitude.” Runny- 
mede gave another triumph for liberty when the barons wrenched 
Magna Charta from their monarch, forced him to say, “To no man 
will we sell, or deny, or delay, right or justice,”—gave him “four 
and twenty over-kings,” as he cried in his fury. Again was the 
battle fought out at Naseby on Marston Moor. The walls of 
Westminster resounded with its victory for the people in the Bill 
of Rights, ensuring that never again should English King have 
other warrant for his power than an Act of Parliament. 
It was fought out at Bunker Hill and Yorktown, in Faneuil 
Hall and the State House at Philadelphia, on every battle 
field and in every forum of debate where the rights of the many 
have faced the privileges of the few. 

Never did the right of the people to be heard have a more 
stalwart champion than in a hero of Massachusetts, John Quincy 
Adams. For eight years the odious Gag Rule forbade any citizen 
to petition the Congress of the United States in the matter of 
human slavery, forbade public opinion to speak, forbade the voice 
of the people to be heard. For eight years that venerable, doughty 
champion of the rights of man fought in behalf of the idea for 
which we fight. For eight years passion, prejudice, 
avarice, and fear stifled his appeal for justice and order, 
for free thought and free speech. At last truth won, and when 
the patriarch knew that again the right of any American citizen 
to address his representatives would prevail, he lifted his hands 
to Heaven and exclaimed, “Blessed be the name of God.” Whether 
we in our turn must fight eight years or eighty, we know not and 
we care not. All that us concerns is to do our duty as we see it, 
assured that in God’s own time another step will be taken toward 
establishing the right of men to govern themselves, another step 
toward securing that this shall be a government not only for the 
people, but of the people and by the people. 


19 


JUN 28 1911 


library of congress 


o 028 001 683 4 


PUBLIC OPINION BILL 

As Reported to 

THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES OF 1907 

AN ACT 

To authorize the Submission to Voters, on Official Ballots at 

State Elections, of Questions of Public Policy. 

Be it enacted, etc. 

Section 1 . On a request signed by one thousand voters, 
asking for the submission of any question for an expression of 
opinion and stating the substance thereof, the secretary of the 
Commonwealth shall transmit such request to the state ballot 
law commission, who shall determine if such question is one of 
public policy, and if they so determine, shall draft it in such 
simple, unequivocal, and adequate form as they may deem best 
suited to secure a fair expression of opinion. Thereupon the sec¬ 
retary shall prepare and furnish suitable forms, each to contain 
spaces for not more than one hundred signatures, and if such 
forms shall be signed by five thousand voters, he shall upon the 
fulfilment of the requirements of this act place such question on 
the official ballot to be used at the next state election. Forms 
shall bear the date on which they are issued, and no applications 
made on forms issued more than twelve months before the elec¬ 
tion concerned, shall be received. 

Section 2. Signers of requests for the issuance of forms 
and signers of applications shall append to their signatures their 
residence, with street and number, if any, and shall be certified 
as Registered voter by the proper registrars of voters. One of 
the signers to each paper shall make oath of the genuineness - of 
the signatures thereto, and a notary public, justice of the peace, 
or other magistrate, when taking such oath, shall satisfy him¬ 
self that the person to whom the oath is administered is the per¬ 
son signing such paper, and shall so state in his attestation of 
such oath. All provisions of law relating to nomination papers 
shall apply to such requests and applications as far as may be 
consistent. 

Section 3. Applications shall be filed with the secretary 
sixty days before the election at which the questions are to be 
submitted. Not more than four questions under this act shall 
be placed upon the ballot at one election, and they shall be sub¬ 
mitted in the order in which the applications are filed. No ques¬ 
tion negatived, and no question substantially the same, shall be 
submitted again in less than three years. 


